Poach
Summary Poach has been present on TWC Minecraft since the days of Alpha. Often recalling the days of clientside inventory and chests, when logging out would clear both your inventory and any chests you had, or the days before PvP was even possible on SMP, his stories are many and, depending on who is asked, either interesting or extremely dull and rambling in a manner akin to an old man recounting his days of youth. Poach played as a veteran member of The Brotherhood, a faction he has a long and proud history with, serving with it from start to end. Poach served on TWC's and then MCC's Staff as an Administrator for several years, eventually resigning due to taking up full time employment in RL in September of 2013. He remains an Admin on TWC, performing roles not associated with Minecraft. Today Poach is a member of the Dwarves, a faction he spent the majority of his days as an enemy of and competitor to. The Early Days Back before Minecraft truly took off on TWC, Poach was part of a small group of players playing on a "spawn server" (before the days of creative, all items had to be spawned using commands), where he spent his days building forts, manors, castles and towns alongside other old-timers like Arriona and Mangerman. Soon, however, new players arrived, and the server expanded. It was restarted to give everyone an even playing field, and was set up as a spawn server with consensual PvP. Poach struck off into the wilds, building a mighty fortress city under the faction name "The Brotherhood of Blocks". Others soon joined him, with Katsumoto's Empire of the Sun and Ascarona's Skyland to the North, the perfidious and warlike scourge of the Dwarves to the South, Musthavename's fortress to the East, and Ishkaballaa'nar to the West, though they would soon depart for the far, far North. The Brotherhood remained a 1 man faction but holdings slowly expanded east, with Poach building, in addition to his fortress capital, a small faux-nation of 4 small towns and a series of forts and outposts. Allied to the Empire of the Sun, peace reigned. Only one war happened on the server, for which Poach was absent and, as such, the Brotherhood of Blocks gained no honours, despite technically being a part of the war. The Brotherhood Rises The server was restarted again under new rules: spawning was disabled and Kingdom wars were no longer consensual. It was a true survival PvP server. Poach was quickly contacted by his old friend Katsumoto, who was putting together a faction that would become known as The Brotherhood. Poach had a glorious time with the Brotherhood, fighting in the Great War and, along with the rest of the Brotherhood, successfully fighting a much larger coalition of enemies to a standstill, forcing several nations out of the war in exhaustion, and ending in a White Peace. As the defending, and heavily outnumbered, side in the war, Poach to this day maintains that this counts as a moral victory for the Brotherhood and a testament to their martial prowess. After the Brotherhood The Great War exhausted everyone, and the server was restarted to revitalise the playerbase. The Old Guard of the Brotherhood formed Sparta, of which Poach and Katsumoto were joint Kings, as per the historical Spartan system. The Spartans fought a short war against The Federation of Krikkit alongside their Northmen allies, which came to little. Server activity died down, the restart having failed to bring a fresh wind into the server. Many, including Poach, left. Time passed. Elfdude created a new server, and invited the playerbase to return. The new server had a very PvP-friendly ruleset and relied on Judges to define borderline cases, rather than the large and overly complex ruleset that governed the old servers. Poach returned, joining at first the short-lived Flamboyant Flamingo faction, which fell apart due to the overly warlike leadership of Hilary_Duff. He founded the Community of United New Territories alone and invited all to join him. Over time the old Flamingos, Hil and Austin, as well as PatricianS and once-Brotherhood comrade Remlap, would join the faction. Poach led the Community to victory in the server's only large scale war, attacking and defeating the largest power of the server, Vardia. This server soon died off due to the upcoming Official TWC server. Brotherhood Renewed When the official Minecraft servers launched the Brotherhood once more reformed and quickly rose to become a major power on the servers. Arguably the strongest single faction at any one time, the Brotherhood held influence over large tracts of the world and were active both diplomatically and in warfare. Poach remained as a part of the Brotherhood until it dissolved at the close of the Dwarven - Brotherhood War. Though the war ended in a White Peace, the Brotherhood had declined from their previous heights, with many members largely inactive or semi-active. As a result the decision was taken to disband, resulting in The Brotherhood Dissolution. The Brothers decided to disband with honour and dignity than to slide into the abyss of inactivity and disbandment by the anti-inactives mechanism. Poach briefly joined the Blackstone Mercenary Company, but soon left. He drifted from faction to faction as maps changed, becoming a less active member of the community. Towny and the New Beginning With the demise of MCC's Factions Servers, work began on a Towny server. Poach was approached by old-friend and long-term adversary Hilary_Duff with a controversial offer: the Dwarven Empire, a faction that had been the Brotherhood's primary competitor and enemy since the earliest Community Server days, sought fresh blood. Poach accepted the offer and was officiated as a Dwarf shortly thereafter through an invite to their faction forum. Since the launch of the Towny server, Poach has proven himself to be an integral part of the Dwaven Empire's fighting force, seeing action at the forefront of the Dwarven-Arenland War and The Dwarven War of Retaliation Against Belka.